


what is within, is without

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 500 Words Challenge, F/M, Hamilton References, No Pregnancy, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Short One Shot, The World Between Worlds (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28840581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: Ben Solo reflects in the World Between Worlds.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	what is within, is without

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in July 2020 for a 500-word challenge, and I never posted it anywhere!

The mists of time swirl around him.

Past, present, future, all united as one. All possibilities. 

Voices echo and whisper from behind doorways, glimpses of what might have been, or what has not yet come to pass. 

Some voices he recognizes. Others make him wish he had a library at his disposal, a real library with flimisplasts instead of holos where he could research and learn and write to his heart’s content.

Yet he never hears the voice he longs most to hear. 

Was she happy now? Was she happier without him? Where was she now?

Did she listen for his voice in her dreams?

He knew time was passing, could feel it in his bones, but there was no sun or moon by which he could mark days the way she had on Jakku. The eternal twinkling starlight provided no metric by which he could maintain some semblance of reality. 

Without a library, or datapad, or any mechanism to count the days, Ben Solo was left alone with his thoughts. 

He had a bad feeling about this. Being left alone with his thoughts had never done him any good. 

* * *

Ben had only ever seen holos of his biological grandmother’s Senate speeches. He had seen some of his adoptive grandmother’s speeches on Alderaan too, but as a child, he had been able to meet Alderaanian refugees who remembered his Grandma Breha. Her memory--her legacy--were honored and revered by those who survived, and it kept her alive to Ben in a way that Padmé Amidala was not. 

He regretted never going to Naboo. 

He regretted so many things. 

It was in the midst of another episode of self-loathing and regret that he heard his grandmother’s voice from beyond one of the doors. 

“Grandmother,” he managed to croak. His voice sounded foreign, strange to him--rusty from disuse, like a droid that hadn’t been oiled in decades. 

Padmé Amidala was kind, beautiful, and sad, his mother had told him. 

Much like herself.

Much like Rey. 

_History obliterates and repeats_ , he remembered from his childhood lessons. He hadn’t learned that one too well. 

He reached for his grandmother, but she slipped through his fingers as easily as mist upon Naboo’s waters. Or a cloud on Alderaan’s mountains. 

Or grains of sand on Tatooine. 

He fell to his knees on the pathway, weeping. 

_Rey_ , he called out in anguish, desperately clawing at the cobwebs in his mind and the ghostly presences he felt in the Force. 

On Tatooine, Rey sat up in bed, gasping for breath. Another nightmare? No--this pain was real. She placed her hand over her heart. 

_Ben_ , she thought, her nightly tears having barely dried scant hours before. 

_Ben, I’m coming._

_I will find you, and bring you home_. 

She was going to save who she loved.

Her only hope was that he heard her, wherever he was. 

In the World Between Worlds, time’s wheel kept turning for Ben Solo. The stars twinkled. The voices whispered. Hope was like the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, and you can find me on Tumblr with the same username.


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